Forum menu
What a waste of money!
I dont know ANYTHING about sonar but I am surprised they are still using it. When LIDAR and RADAR have come so far...
You don't know much about radar either - as well as the lack of a "passive" mode radio waves are strongly absorbed by seawater.
Conventional modern radar eg air traffic control systems mostly operate in the microwave band. Now what else are microwaves used for? Hang on a minute... maybe I'll just go and reheat this cup of coffee in the kitchen while I try to remember... 😉
Reheating coffee? You clearly know nothing.
Unfortunately the back of the sub will be cancelled by the ConDems. Anyone want to buy a front?
waste of money?
It's kept a lot of british people in work and companies doing cutting edge engineering, R&D and manufacturing. In this country. Slowing down the rate at which GB becomes a 2nd rate financial services supplier rather than a first rate engineering provider....
Can't see the UK giving up a submarine force - especially while there is a long list of other navies operating submarines... some of them potentially unstable or hostile to UK interests (Iran, North Korea, China, Indonesia
The North Koreans have (allegedly) been making use of theirs recently...
£1 Billion ....... and I bet it will still get tangled up in trawler nets,
thesurfbus - sorry, SCC = submarine control console. Seeing the pictures reminds me I've also had a hand in the contoured dock support blocks and the restraint system of the service jetty that's being built to support the Astute boats.
EDIT : supersessions9-2, +1
I find it funny when people call stuff like this a waste of money, £1bn a pop? Small price to pay to maintain control of the seas upon which billions of pounds worth of trade sail over to and from the UK.
bristolbiker - OK I asked a colleague and yes, its part of the Command Team Trainer which I don't work on, I just do the smaller systems SONAR, COMMS, ACMS, Optronics etc.
If they closed down the Barrow yard tomorrow, as well as launching an entire town onto the dole, which I witnessed in the 80's, the big problem would be finding all those specialist skills again in a few years time when the economy picked up and the orders came back in. They also do a lot of work in that yard for the other allied forces. They were doing specialist work for the Spanish Navy not so long ago, as they didn't have the people, skills or equipment to do it there, they had to come to us.
thesurfbus -
its part of the Command Team Trainer which I don't work on
Wow - some when you say 'simulator' then you're not just talking about simulating the dyanimcs of submarine, but modelling enough of the ops area to model chain-of-command decisions between the crew? Chapeau - very impressive 😉
Whilst I understand the need for these sorts of things in the whole "geo-political" landscape sort of way. The idea that whilst stuff that we all of need on a day to day basis is going to be squeezed until the pips burst, that this sort of thing is still being funded by my taxes still grates somewhat.
and agree entirely that HMS Ambush seems to go against the grain...what's next? HMS Sneaking About? HMS Furtive? HMS With My Reputation?
reminds me of the Culture nomenclature;
[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_%28The_Culture%29 ]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_%28The_Culture%29[/url]
HMS What Are The Civilian Applications?
HMS All Through With This Niceness And Negotiation Stuff
HMS Lapsed Pacifist
HMS Lacking That Small Match Temperament
the possibilites are endless...
Well it already looks like it's a victim of budget cuts as it would appear to be stuck together with gaffer tape in that first picture 😉
Quite like HMS Dont****withus
When LIDAR and RADAR have come so far...
LIDAR - light attenuation in seawater is very high, you'd be unable to see very far even with trout lights. And you're blindingly obvious if being hunted.
RADAR - Seawater again is rather hard to pass radio waves through, and it makes you something of a target.
SONAR - Fairly easy to make a system that can just listen in passively from stupendous distances due to the nature of water. With the advances in sonar sensor arrays it's possible to determine a 3D map of the area in question down to the cm and identify exactly what is making what noise.
Spare a thought for other animals who communicate/navigate with SONAR in the worlds oceans. Think what high powered SONAR signals do to their sensory organs etc. ****ing humans and their pointless little pursuits. Hopefully the thing will end up on the ocean floor killing all the idiots onboard.
What high powered SONAR signals?
"Why does everyone, including the dumbed down media, insist on calling all surface warships "battleships"?????"
Cos they are ships and they do battles? you do realise it's a generic term and those of us who don't float about for a living, by and large don't really care about the correct identification of a class of boat that became obsolete decades ago ?:)
Spare a thought for other animals who communicate/navigate with SONAR in the worlds oceans. Think what high powered SONAR signals do to their sensory organs etc. ****ing humans and their pointless little pursuits. Hopefully the thing will end up on the ocean floor killing all the idiots onboard.
Indeed active sonar can cause problems. That said we cause the destruction of millions of animals and insects, both endangered and not, by accident (birds flying into windows/wind turbines/radio masts etc) and on purpose, so sonar is likely to be a very small pimple on a very large duck egg.
"wwaswas - Member
reminds me of the Culture nomenclature"
ROU Neccesary Evil But Still Cool 😉
SUnday BBC2 9pm - How to build a Nuclear Submarine.
Hopefully the thing will end up on the ocean floor killing all the idiots onboard.
.
.
.
Enough submariners of all nations have been tragically killed in peacetime accidents to make that one of the sickest comments I have seen on STW.
JCL, I can only assume that you are a cold, selfish, mean spiritied little tosser who needs to get out more.
Particularly with Ambush being an RN boat, you are talking about British crews and grieving relatives...
... do you lie awake at night wishing for UK troops in Afghanistan to be killed and maimed to satisfy your own twisted perspective????
If you are making an immature comment in honest ignorance, then I suggest you scout out a copy of "Few Survived", by Edwyn Gray
I would love to stand in the dry dock in front of that once its done to get a sence of scale!!
I can remember sailing past USS enterprise in a 21ft boat the thing was massive!!
JCL bad form that comment mate.
wow they are great.
There are strict guidlines that the RN have to follow when using the Active Sonar when there are large mammals nearby. From memory its the really low frequency sound waves that the oil exploration companies use to map the ocean floor that causes the most distress to mammals.
JCL - as much as I empathise with the "spare a thought for marine life" comment, I can't believe you'd wish for it to kill "all the idiots onboard". Surely human life is of more value than that?
There are massive restrictions on where we operate active sonar now, plus consider that a submarine doesn't really want to use active sonar, after all, it emits a noise that can be detected and tracked by other ships/subs operating a passive system.
JCL - totally unjustified and immature comment, obviously you have no idea about how a modern sub works with sonar, go and do your research before making daft comments like that.
The irony is thousands of 'idiots onboard' have died so JCL can sit at his computer unmolested and spout sh1te 👿
HMS Ambush will be completed. Boat 5 (Agememnon) long lead time items are being worked in the supply chain. Smart money is on Boat 7 being cancelled though.
JCL - totally unjustified and immature comment, obviously you have no idea about how a modern sub works with sonar, go and do your research before making daft comments like that.
"Military-sponsored tests now suggest that low levels of sonar, which do not cause direct damage to whales, could still cause harm by triggering behavioural changes."
"The UK military report details observations of whale activity during Operation Anglo-Saxon 06, a submarine war-games exercise in 2006. Produced for the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, it states the results are “potentially very significant”.
The study used an array of hydrophones to listen for whale sounds during the war games. Across the course of the exercise, the number of whale recordings dropped from over 200 to less than 50. “Beaked whale species ... appear to cease vocalising and foraging for food in the area around active sonar transmissions,” concludes the report.
It notes, “Since these animals feed at depth, this could have the effect of preventing a beaked whale from feeding over the course of the trial and could lead to second or third order effects on the animal and population as a whole.”
My comment stands. A huge waste of money and resources and that's without even going into the ethics of the navigation system. The morons who man these things deserve everything they get. 80 million more of us are added to the global human population annually and you lot are actually arguing for a bunch of idiots in a giant nuclear powered/armed metal tube. Now that is ironic...
Oh well at least we'll all be able to sleep at night knowing that an extra 1000 square miles of Iranian desert would be incinerated in a potential future nuclear conflict thanks to the sub and the 'brave lads' onboard.
Epicyclo the pop gun is for stopping and searching, the business arsenal is in the square section behind it. Lots of missiles that the radar in the globe uses to attack multiple targets all over the show. Windows for warships crashed when it was on sea trials according to the documentary that the BBC showed recently.
JCL - stop being a c@ck and get yourself better informed...
Whilst you might be well informed about impacts on marine mammals, you allow your specialist knowledge in this area to justify ignorance elsewhere.
As pointed out by coffeeking, pretty much all human activities impact on the natural world, it's resources and biodiversity.
Do you drive??
If so you are directly complicit in the current GoM oil spill and the geo-political tensions in the ME. You have a stake in the US (+ UK and others) military actions in Iraq to protect furture hydrocarbon resources and supply chain.
If you don't drive, fly or use other hydrocarbon fuelled transport then you still have a stake in our collective impact on the planet - perhaps, as you are on this forum, you ride a bike??
Aluminium frame? I've been directly involved in the environemntal assessment of aluminium processing sites - pretty unpleasant. Bauxite mining is opencast, with huge areas of despoilation. Aluminium smelting is highly energy intensive, and typically uses mercury electrodes. Mercury and fluorine contamination often result.
Ohh, and the Astute class submarines are "hunter killers" - not ballistic missile submarines. So whilst they will undoubtedly have a nuclear capability (via sub launched cruise), they are not lurking around in the ocean waiting to trigger nuclear armageddon.
BUT, their use to track and keep tabs on Soviet missile boats during the cold war would have been one of a number of succesful strategies that maintained peace during a prolonged period of tension between nuclear armed super powers.
I am environmentalist myself, but lets have some context??? Spouting off about killing British submariners is hardly likely to advance the protection of biodiversity and the planet's resources is it?
After studying environmental science (studies) at a level i can whole heartedly agree rkk01.
I plan to be joining the navy and if i were to be around anybody saying what you have had jlc they would be in a wheel chair. Yes the armed forces go to war and often have to 'kill' people. Its part of the job description and it is done on the word of royalty, politicians and the high state officers.
I for one would fear a sailing upon a submarine because of the potential risks involved during combat. You have the nerve to wish they would die. Lets whack you in a submarine with a crew whom you know to the very limits and then place you in a combat situation.
Chances are you'd be the first one to bottle, heck I know i could break under those circumstances i have only taken part in land exercises with the cadets and small camps with the armed forces.
If you feel you should die I dare you to walk up to any person of the armed forces even those at headly court and say it to their faces! I for one know you would get the sh*te kicked out of you repeatedly and locked away for
in sighting hatred!
and it also used to be treason for wishing any of her majesty's armed forces death. on a side note causing any harm to personal in armed forces uniform is a high rated offense!
"Why does everyone, including the dumbed down media, insist on calling all surface warships "battleships"?????"
Who ever played lightcruisers as a kid ? Anyone?, no we played battleships!!
I plan to be joining the navy and if i were to be around anybody saying what you have had jlc they would be in a wheel chair.
Hopefully you'll get in, that way at least you'll be segregated from civilised society for long periods.
so if some one told you he wished you and your colleagues died under tragic circumstances you would do nothing?
I would laugh at such an idiotic comment, rather than cripple them.
2 different mind sets and i hold the up most respect for armed forces personal, i may have been rash saying i'd put him in a wheel chair but i would clearly make it know how i feel!
I am glad not all submarines of the Royal Navy end up at the bottom of the ocean otherwise 2 generations of my family would not be here as my grandad served on subs in the 1920s as an asdic/wireless operator
you lot are actually arguing for a bunch of idiots in a giant nuclear powered/armed metal tube. Now that is ironic...Oh well at least we'll all be able to sleep at night knowing that an extra 1000 square miles of Iranian desert would be incinerated in a potential future nuclear conflict thanks to the sub and the 'brave lads' onboard.
The astute class is not nuclear armed. You also go on to say that it is a waste of money and resources. Surely that depends on the job that the sub fulfils and since you can't correctly identify its weapons systems, I suspect that you don't understand how it will be employed either.
Whether you agree with its purchase or not and whether you agree with the role of the forces or not, I think that wishing the mass death of everyone onboard is hardly a proportionate response.
Clearly, there are people on here who know far more about the subject than I, but my view is that despite claims of being the ‘senior service’ the Royal Navy in recent years has been by far the least-distinguished of the three. In the past decade alone there has been controversy after controversy.
Last year, a RN sub managed to hit a French one in the middle of the Atlantic. A pretty big patch of water. Yet another crashed into an underwater mountain in the Red sea because someone used the wrong chart. A destroyer almost sank after running aground near Australia because yet again, someone couldn’t read a chart.
The two (probably soon to become one) aircraft carriers won’t be nuclear powered or possess steam catapults (a British invention ffs). Why not? Wouldn’t it be good not to have to rely on coming into port to fill up the tank every time it’s running low? I seem to remember harbours are not always the safest of places for big boats.
That Type 45 destroyer pictured a few pages back behind the new sub apparently can’t take corners too well and could very possibly topple over due to the top-heavy design where all the fancy radar is housed. Someone who was in a position to know, but probably not to say, told me that sea trials had shown up a number of minor issues in either the submarine or the destroyer (I can’t remember which) like water-tight doors wouldn’t close properly and it listed in the water. Pretty trifling niggles I guess.
Why join the navy? You sit in a metal box for 6 months at a time, pressing buttons. On the few occasions that you do come into contact with unfriendly forces, either passively observe as British citizens get taken hostage by pirates 100 yards away or make sure you’re smiling for the cameras as you work on your table tennis backhand in Iran.
I don’t begrudge them having expensive pieces of equipment. The men and women serving in our armed forces deserve the best that the nation can afford. What I do question is the ability and competence of the people running it. At the moment, it’s an embarrassment.
Clearly, there are people on here who know far more about the subject than I
Having read what you have just said, you'd be right.
BBC2 sunday night 21.00 hrs a programe about the giant spam can that is that submarine.